I. Newark, U.S.

I. Newark, U.S.

Kroning Ltd. resides in a nondescript office building in a nondescript business district with the typical range of cafés and sandwich shops that cater to a typical white-collar crowd. The State Corporations Database lists it as a company dealing with high-tech compounds. The homepage looks professional, its sleek design liberally inspired by Apple, its ‘About Us' section putting the employee count at roughly a hundred.

It does not mention that the receptionist hides a rapid-fire gun under the counter.

***

Toby is cutting it close. He hates having to rush, especially when the meeting invitation was followed by a strange twist to Liu's smile that Toby has come to recognize as a surefire sign for trouble right this way, please. Unfortunately, he has also come to recognize it as an indication that he'll need coffee so as not to lose his temper, and the lukewarm cardboard cup currently clutched in his hand is the reason he's nearly late. It's a full circle. How wonderful.

With a quick nod to the receptionist—she's new, with a lithe yet strong build and serious eyes—Toby lays his free hand on the scanner at the entrance. It takes less than a second for the device to confirm his permission status, green light flashing as the bulletproof glass doors slide open. He hurries through.

The elevator doors just about close in his face, but he manages to catch it courtesy of a quick shuffle that doesn't quite venture into sprinting territory because One Does Not Run in the lobby of Kroning Ltd.—not unless one wants to risk a gun pointed at their head. Toby likes his face the way it is, thanks. Sliding in next to a woman who works on the floor above him, he almost spills his coffee, ‘almost' being the operational word. As his shirt is new and white, it would have been a serious cause for irritation; Toby would rather not meet his new partner with a beige stain all over his chest. First impressions matter.

The ride up to the thirteenth floor is smooth and silent. He takes the opportunity to sample his coffee. It's precisely as lukewarm as the outside temperature of the cup suggested, and he glares at the cursive writing which informs him that contents may be hot. If only.

He makes it to Liu's office with just under a minute to spare. Liu's assistant is on the phone, but she waves for Toby to proceed through the open door. He enters with a passing knock on the doorframe and finds Liu frowning down at a stack of papers. Toby knows the feeling.

"Morning," he says before plopping down into a chair.

Liu looks up, tilting his head as he pushes the papers aside. His frown melts away. "And," he says, tone ominously smug, "a very good morning to you, too."

Toby could ask. Liu is practically daring him to ask, yet he will almost certainly refuse to reveal anything substantial about Toby's new partner upfront. Toby hasn't had enough coffee to play that game.

After setting his cup down on Liu's desk, he gestures at it. "Are you aware that the coffee maker on my floor is broken? And if yes, what are you doing about it?" He doesn't wait for a response. "The kid in the coffee shop needed hours to serve the guy before me—soy milk is a monumental challenge, apparently. My life, Liu! I could see it draining away in front of my very eyes." Yes, he's being dramatic; no, he doesn't care. His headache is real. So is his addiction. "Anyway, now my coffee is cold and tastes like dishwater. Seriously, man, well-trained personnel? It's worth the investment. Explain that to the coffee shop down the road, or I swear to God I will."

"Christ, you're crabby when you're low on caffeine."

"Not low," Toby corrects. "Out. Out of caffeine. Was running late this morning."

Liu grimaces and gets up without another word, walking past Toby to stick his head out of the door. "Hey, Mirjam? Do you want to preserve my sanity?"

"Is that a trick question?" she calls back.

"Funny. Now please get Toby a cup of coffee from the boardroom."

She chuckles. "Sure thing, yes. Anything else?"

"Make it strong."

"Got it, Liu." Her voice carries a softness she reserves for Liu, and Liu only—Toby considers it evidence of her somewhat clichéd crush on her oblivious boss. As it's Liu, Toby doesn't blame her. Fortunately, he has too much common sense to put himself through that particular kind of misery; also, he knows what Liu looks like after five days in the wilderness with no soap on hand, and, more importantly, he's seen Liu's face when the man gets talking about his mysterious cousin. ("Second cousin, Toby! We share a great-grandmother. Get your facts straight.") Anyway, he knows a lost cause when he sees one.

Brief silence descends while Liu returns to his chair.

Toby takes the opportunity to appreciate the view from Liu's office, presenting him with buildings that reflect the morning sun in flashes of gold, a sky of a translucent blue arching over the city, marred only by the white lines left behind by planes. For an early spring day in Newark, it's uncommonly sunny and warm.

"If you're this eager to ensure I'm sedated with coffee…" Toby leans forward, elbows on his knees, as he considers his choice of wording. "Or maybe it's not so much sedated as placated. Appeased. Mollified?" He pauses for effect. "Liu Wei Zhou, are you trying to bribe me?" Another pause, too short for Liu to get a word in. "Actually, don't answer that. Question is, how bad is this going to be? I need to prepare myself mentally."

"Not thatbad." Liu smiles broadly, and Toby doesn't believe a word. Not a tiny, single word. After all, Liu is an accomplished agent; he is an artist of deception just like most people in this building. Toby is so onto him. "It's just that your new partner was trained elsewhere, so he might be used to doing things a bit..." Liu introduces a delicate break. "Differently."

"Differently," Toby repeats. He straightens in the chair and waves one hand at Liu. "Differently as in he wears his boxers over his pants? Differently as in he prefers to barge in first and collect information later? Or differently as in he's already late? Please, feel free to elaborate."

Liu's reply is cut short by Mirjam. Toby's okay with it since she walks in carrying possibly the first good thing that happened to him all morning—Jesus, he'd kill for regular access to the boardroom coffee. Figuratively, not literally.

Probably.

"Thank you," he tells her when he accepts the cup. "Seriously, thank you. You are a goddess among mere mortals, and whatever Liu's paying you, it's not enough."

Mirjam responds with a laugh. "I'm really not complaining. And you're welcome."

She gives them both a smile before she retreats with a quick glance at Liu. Her steps are silent on the thick carpet, and Toby wants a carpet just like that at home because it must feel great to walk around on five inches of pure money at all times. Not that he's home much.

Taking a sip of his coffee, he groans in delight; the temperature is perfect, a note of chocolate mixing with just a hint of bitterness. "This," he says around another mouthful, "is what I should be drinking all the time. I would be a much happier employee if you let me have this on a regular basis. Seriously. I'd shine your shoes if you let me have this whenever I want."

Liu grins. "You're easy, man."

"Proud of it, too."

Liu raises both brows, shaking his head. Then his gaze focuses on something behind Toby, his expression turning serious and his tone smooth, business-like. "Agent Redding. Thank you for joining us."

Twisting around in his chair, Toby takes in slender fingers wrapped around a cardboard cup with the same inscription as the one now sitting abandoned on Liu's desk. Next up: cargo pants hanging off lean hips, an unbuttoned black shirt over a white top, strong arms. Toby's gaze stops on a lovingly tanned, even face. In his early thirties, Redding is certainly easy on the eyes. It could prove a problem when the aim is to stay unnoticed, as evidenced by the fact that Toby would have remembered their first encounter even if he hadn't been trained to pay attention to his surroundings.

"Okay," he says, nodding at Liu. "Differently as in: no one taught him how to dress for an average office setting."

"Excuse me?" Redding's brows draw together, a steep crease appearing between them. He steps into the room and closes the door before crossing his arms, leaning back against thick wood that comes with a core of steel. The once-over he gives Toby is quick, but focused.

"You" —Toby gestures with his free hand, the one that isn't clutching heavenly coffee— "are wearing cargo pants. Which sets you apart from the normal office commuter crowd, something we are specifically trying to avoid around here. Hence our dress code." With a one-sided shrug, he raises his porcelain cup in a toast. "That said, I hope your soy latte is palatable. My coffee wasn't, so I found a better one."

"Sorry the first one wasn't worth the wait." Redding grins very suddenly, and it changes his entire appearance, makes him look mischievous and even more attractive. "Colorful language, by the way."

Toby shrugs. "The kid needed ages to handle your order. I don't suffer fools well, fair warning."

He's joking, mostly. Even though the dress code exists for a reason, and he severely hopes Redding is better at following instructions in the field.

Redding's grin disappears as suddenly as it came. He pushes away from the door, drawing closer with easy grace and a narrow-eyed look at Toby. "Your point?"

"No point." Toby sniffs his coffee and keeps his tone pleasant. "Although I do wonder how you managed to be late even though you left before me."

"Mr. Redding," Liu intersects evenly. "Welcome, please have a seat. I see you've already met Toby Brown. He'll be your partner while you're working with us."

Redding doesn't sit down immediately; first, he greets Liu, then offers his hand to Toby with a skeptical glance at Toby's tie and a smooth, "Mike Redding. Pleasure to meet you." The last part comes with a subtle note of doubt, and yeah, the reserved judgment is mutual.

"Mr. Redding, I'm Toby Brown. Pleasure's all mine, of course." Toby rises slightly to shake Redding's hand. He isn't above tightening his grip, just to see how Redding will react, and gets his instant answer in the form of an iron hold that lasts slightly longer than necessary. They're both competitive; this bodes well. Not.

"Please." Redding's smile is all teeth. "Just Mike is fine."

Mike. All right. Chances are that's the only part of his name that's genuine; agents who are sent out to do field work don't risk revealing themselves, and while Mike might be used to doing things differently, that's one rule that applies nearly unilaterally. Sometimes, it leads to a meeting of two color-inspired fake names—brown and red? Either someone with a sense of humor put them together, or theirs is a star-crossed partnership, which suggests a violent ending and mutual death. Like Romeo and Juliet, who killed themselves. Like Bonnie and Clyde, who died in a rain of bullets.

Anyway.

Nodding as he sits back down, Toby replies with a curt, "Toby, please."

"Great." Liu waits for Mike to take a seat before he leans forward, lacing his fingers on top of his papers. "To expand on those introductions… Toby, Mike originally trained with the SEALs, so that's a skill set you might want to consider. His specialty is getting in and out of difficult spaces, alive."

"The last part, right there?" Toby says. "That's a useful addendum because, see, anyone can exit a difficult space in a coffin."

A grin flashes over Liu's face before his expression turns smooth again and he turns to Mike. "Now, Toby is one of our best, and he'll be your immediate superior while you're assigned to us. Strategy and information gathering are his forte, including hacking into computer systems." He gives them a second to digest this. "I'm putting one and one together and sending you to India, black bag job. We've identified a factory that might be shipping weapons to the Taliban via Pakistan. What we lack is evidence." Liu leans back with a self-satisfied smile. "I believe you're perfectly matched to address that problem."

Toby gives Mike's cargo pants a quick sideways glance and suppresses a sigh. Far be it from him to doubt Liu's assessment, of course.

***

Before parting ways again, they've been given two identical folders with instructions, along with untraceable cell phones to contact each other. The night before Toby's flight leaves, he selects Mike's name from the very short list of pre-programmed numbers and calls.

When Mike picks up after two rings, Toby hears voices in the background, the connection disturbed by what might be wind, or possibly the sound of waves given the regular pattern of ebb and swell. "Toby?" Mike asks.

"Yeah. You free to talk?"

"Sure, yeah." As everything quiets down on the other end of the line, Mike appears to wander away from the source of the background noise. "I got my plane ticket today, flying out next week. You're leaving earlier, right?"

"Tomorrow." Toby reviews the contents of his suitcase—clothes in varying styles, hair dye, technical equipment that won't trigger the alarm at the airport. They'll need to pick up weapons at a contact point in New Delhi. "Going ahead to check out a few things, set up some stuff. I'll arrange it so that a copy of my room key is waiting at the airport when you land, then we'll regroup."

"Exchanging keys already?" Mike's voice is laced with dry humor. "I didn't think we were at that stage in our relationship."

Toby ignores him. "Under what name are you flying?"

"Arthur Dent."

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"

"Don't panic. It's a useful mindset." Mike's laugh is low and slightly husky. "It's one of my favorite aliases, actually."

"Sounds suspiciously British to me." After snapping the suitcase shut, Toby sits down on his bed and looks around the sparsely decorated room. He's been staying at his apartment for nearly three weeks now; it's the longest he's been home in a year.

Home. Realizing the slip, Toby makes a note to look for another place as soon as he returns from India.

"I do a passable imitation of a British accent," Mike interrupts Toby's thought process.

"That's nice," Toby says. "What about your Hindi?"

"Rough, at best." Mike sounds as if the concession pains him.

"Okay, mine's slightly better than rough, but by no means fluent. We'll manage." Toby pauses, absently picking up a lone sock that somehow found its way to the foot of his bed. "The room will be under Mauro Gillard, by the way." It's one of two names Toby will be using for this op. There's no need to reveal another alias to Mike, though; sharing more than what's necessary is inadvisable in their line of work. "You're flying First Class, I assume?"

"Don't we always?" If Mike is put off by the abrupt topic change, it doesn't show.

"Right," Toby says, repeats it. "Right. Then be sure to dress the part, okay? No cargo pants. We don't want to draw any attention to ourselves."

"You know, I have done this before." An edge of annoyance creeps into Mike's voice, blanking out the humorous warmth that was there before.

"Good. Then the key card will be waiting at the airport information desk, and I'll see you at the hotel." Toby hesitates, then adds, "Safe travels." Never let it be said that he doesn't try.

"You too," he hears after a noticeable pause.

Good enough. Toby hangs up without another word and mentally reviews what's left of his to-do list.